The term “flexible” is utilized herein to refer to materials that are capable of being flexed or bent especially repeatedly such that they are pliant and usable in response to externally applied forces. Accordingly, “flexible” is substantially opposite in meaning to terms such as “inflexible”, “rigid”, or “unyielding”. Materials and structures that are flexible therefore may be altered in shape and structure to accommodate external forces and to conform to the shape of objects brought into contact with them without losing their integrity. Flexible films of the type commonly available are typically formed from materials having consistent physical properties throughout the film structure, such as stretch, tensile and/or elongation properties.
A process known for forming flexible film web substrates having deformations formed thereon include the passing of a continuous web material between a pair of matched forming rolls to form an intentional pattern of deformations in the film. Illustrative publications dealing with the state of the art with regard to continuous webs and film materials having intentional patterns and deformations disposed thereon are detailed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,554,093; 5,575,747; 5,723,087; 5,518,801; 5,156,793; 7,172,801 and 6,394,652.
Likewise, printed film materials can be produced by several processes. A first process for printing a web substrate is the use of a rotogravure process. A rotogravure process is a true “intaglio” (i.e., cut-in or sunken) printing process. Rotogravure processes print directly from unconnected cells engraved into a plate cylinder. Ink is then applied to the engraved areas and doctored, or wiped off, the smooth non-image areas. The resulting inked image is then impressed onto the substrate to be printed. Typical print cylinders in rotogravure processes are machined, electroplated with copper, ground, and polished. The cells holding the ink are not interconnected; therefore, a checkerboard or saw tooth pattern shows up around the print edges—a characteristic of gravure printing. To overcome these deficiencies, very fine screen sizes are used to make the rough edges as inconspicuous as possible. The cylinder's print areas are etched as microscopic cup-like cells while non-print areas remain untouched: the larger and bolder the copy, the larger and deeper the etched cells. Fine tonal areas typically have a smaller cell size and depth. As would be known to those of skill in the art, inks suitable for use in a rotogravure process are fluid and have very low viscosity.
A second process for printing web substrates involves flexographic methods. Flexographic printing methods are methods of direct rotary printing that use resilient relief-image plates of rubber or photopolymer materials. The plates are affixed to plate cylinders and are inked by a cell-structured ink metering “anilox” roll carrying a fast drying fluid ink to plates that print onto virtually any substrate, absorbent or non-absorbent. An image is produced for every revolution of the printing plate cylinder. The printing plate cylinder is typically suitable for re-use with multiple designs depending upon the repeat pattern and web material width. Flexographic processes were developed primarily for printing onto packaging substrates where materials are commonly supplied in roll form for feeding into form/fill, overwrapping, bag making, and other continuous web processing machinery. As would be known to those of skill in the art, flexographic printing processes use either solvent or water-based low viscosity inks that dry very quickly between the print stations of a press.
Typical texturing processes for providing a printed web substrate with and elastic-like behavior can cause deformations in the printed surface, thereby obscuring any indicia disposed upon the web substrate. Particularly, the loss of branding indicia, consumer information indicia, patent marking statement indicia, and the like upon such packaging by an texturing process is an undesirable effect.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide for a textured and printed substrate wherein the benefits of an “elastic-like” behavior in the direction of an applied elongation to the web substrate can be presented into such a material that does not obscure any indicia presented thereon. As used herein, the term “elastic-like” describes the behavior of web materials which, when subjected to an applied elongation, extend in the direction of applied elongation and when the applied elongation is released, the web materials return to a substantial degree to their untensioned condition. While such web materials exhibiting an elastic-like behavior would have a wide range of utility (such as covering materials such as upholstery, wrapping materials for complex shapes, commercial packaging, and the like), they would be particularly well suited for providing indicia-laden consumer packaging with an ability to be gripped as well as reduce the amount of breakthrough when the packaging is handled by the consumer.